Broadcast/multicast services are services intended to provide flexible and efficient mechanisms to send common (the same) information from one sender to multiple receivers.
In the context of a wireless communication system, the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) is used in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) as standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
In the 3GPP MBMS, the broadcast service describes a unidirectional point-to-multipoint transmission of multimedia data (e.g. text, audio, picture, video) from a single source entity (the sender) to all users (the receivers) in a broadcast area or areas. The broadcast mode is intended to efficiently use radio/network resources, e.g. data is transmitted over a common radio channel. Data is transmitted to broadcast areas as defined by the network.
A broadcast service received by the user may involve one or more successive broadcast sessions. A broadcast service might, for example, consist of a single on-going session (e.g. a media stream) or may involve several intermittent sessions over an extended period of time (e.g. messages).
An example of a service using the broadcast mode could be advertising or a welcome message to the network. As not all users attached to the network may wish to receive these messages then the user shall be able to enable/disable the reception of these broadcast services on his User Equipment (UE).
The broadcast mode differs from the multicast mode in that there is no specific requirement to activate or subscribe to the MBMS in broadcast mode.
The multicast mode of the 3GPP MBMS allows the unidirectional point-to-multipoint transmission of multimedia data (e.g. text, audio, picture, video) from a single source point to a multicast group in a multicast area. The multicast mode is intended to efficiently use radio/network resources, e.g. data is transmitted over a common radio channel. Data is transmitted to multicast areas as defined by the network. In the multicast mode there is the possibility for the network to selectively transmit to cells within the multicast area, which contain members of a multicast group.
A multicast service received by the UE may involve one or more successive multicast sessions. A multicast service might, for example, consist of a single on-going session (e.g. a multimedia stream) or may involve several intermittent multicast sessions over an extended period of time (e.g. messages). An example of a service using the multicast mode could be a football results service for which a subscription is required.
Unlike the broadcast mode, the multicast mode generally requires a subscription to the multicast subscription group and then the user joining the corresponding multicast group. The subscription and group joining may be made by a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) operator, the user or a third party on their behalf (e.g. company).
The File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE) protocol being available as Internet draft from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) (at http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/) represents a protocol for the unidirectional delivery of files over IP (Internet Protocol) based networks, which is particularly suited to multicast networks, wherein common data is sent from one IP based entity to a plurality of IP based hosts. The FLUTE specification builds on the Asynchronous Layered Coding (ALC) protocol, the base protocol designed for massively scalable multicast distribution. FLUTE is applicable to the delivery of large and small files to many IP based hosts, using delivery sessions of several seconds or more. For instance, FLUTE could also be used for the delivery of large software updates to many IP based hosts simultaneously. It could also be used for continuous, but segmented, data such as time-lined text for subtitling.
However, when trying to make the services of the FLUTE protocol (offered to IP basedhosts) available to 3GPP MBMS, in order to grant the mobile receivers in a wireless communication system access to broadcast/multicast content that is originally located in an IP based network, the problem arises that a plurality of parameters that are required for the establishment of a broadcast/multicast session, wherein common content from a source entity located in the IP based network shall be transmitted to said mobile receivers partly over the IP based network and partly over the wireless network at least partially under the control of the FLUTE protocol, cannot be made available to the mobile receivers. For instance, it is currently not possible to provide the mobile receivers with information on the Forward Error Correction (FEC), on data repair capabilities in case of content damage during a broadcast/multicast session, on congestion control, on the use of multiple channels and on content description used by the FLUTE Protocol, resulting in the fact that these functionalities cannot be performed at both ends of the broadcast/multicast transmission path.